Kenzie Ziegler addresses backlash after video of ex-boyfriend saying racial slur resurfaces
Instagram: kenzieInfluencer and former Dance Moms star Kenzie Ziegler has addressed backlash against her regarding a video she posted of her ex-boyfriend saying a racial slur, that is resurfacing online again.
Mackenzie ‘Kenzie’ Ziegler gained huge amounts of popularity after she appeared on the show Dance Moms alongside her sister Maddie. The show saw the girls compete against other teams in dance competitions, showing all the behind-the-scenes drama.
The Ziegler sisters left the show in 2016 to pursue other aspects of their careers, and Kenzie went on to maintain a substantial following on social media, with 15 million followers on Instagram and over 20 million on TikTok.
Instagram: kenzieHowever, Kenzie started receiving some backlash after an old video of her ex-boyfriend Ashton Arbab saying a racial slur started to resurface again online. The video in question appears to be one where Kenzie films him saying a series of expletives, including a racial slur, after which the dancer laughs.
Another video is also circulating in which he appears to sing along to a song that features a slur in the lyrics.
The videos appear to be several years old, but people still flocked to her social media to ask her about the video in which she featured. Kenzie eventually went live to address the backlash.
“Apparently the same video of my ex-boyfriend saying a bad word is resurfacing again, and I’m getting hate for it again,” she began. “What I’m trying to say, when I said I didn’t know what he was saying, was because I genuinely wasn’t listening to what he was saying. I posted it without knowing what he was saying.”
She continued, “if you guys don’t remember what the video was, it was my ex-boyfriend saying a bad word, I posted it. And I didn’t know he was saying that word. And so some of the comments were just like ‘really Kenzie? Crying emoji, crying emoji'” Kenzie also clarified that, “I would never say that word, I just wanted to let everyone know.”
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However, fans were divided over whether the star should be receiving backlash. “She’s not with him anymore so why is she being dragged into this?” one commenter wrote, another saying “she’s addressed this so many damn times.”
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Some claimed that she should be held accountable, writing, “she knew he was saying it,” with another saying, “why is she changing her story… she literally started laughing after he said it.”
It appears that these videos appear periodically and often spark a new wave of backlash against the influencer, and this hasn’t been the first time she’s had to address it.
